My beloved camera bag!
I am part of a group of great photographers from all over the country and we have all decided to participate in a blog carnival where we write an article about something that is related to our business and working with a professional photographer. At the end of this blog post article I will link to another one of my collagues who has great article for you to read and learn about as well. I have chosen to write about how to safely travel with your photographic and camera equipment.
I love to travel both for work and on a personal level. Every time I travel I of course have to bring my photography gear with me. The few times I have chosen to not bring gear with me I find all these fantastic things to photograph and I am creating images in my head instead. So now I never go on a longer trip without a camera as my companion.
With my family overseas we do travel quite a bit and especially by plane. So my article is going to be about how to protect your gear when you travel.
In the hustle and bustle of traveling it is easy for a camera bag to get dinged and your gear can get damaged. Over the years I have gone from just sticking my camera and a few lenses in a back pack with a sweater over them to a to small camera back where parts of my gear would almost fall out of it. I have now finally found a bag that I absolutely love and it is so easy to use. My bag has rolling wheels so I don’t have to carry (drag) the heavy weight of the bag on my shoulder. It rolls nice and easy down through the aisles of the airplanes to the cobblestone streets in Europe. My bag even has an insert for my laptop so I can fit both my photographic gear and my laptop in the same bag.
My best advise is get the best bag you can upfront where your gear will always be protected. Learn from my mistake and your gear will never be compromised when traveling. if Start your packing with packing your photography gear in a good camera bag made specifically for photographic gear.
Give your self a little extra time when you are at the airport and about to fly. Sometimes when I go through security and especially for international flights they want to go through my whole camera bag. I have to open up the cameras and all lenses so they can see that I don’t have anything I am not suppose to have in there. This is a little bit time consuming but as long as I am aware of that these airport security people may go through my bag it is fine.
When you choose a camera bag find one that fits the international standards of fitting into the overhead bin’s on airplanes. I would hate to have to check my camera bag and loose sight of it while in route to my final destination. My favorite camera bag that I now take with me every where both when just traveling in car or internationally by airplane is the ThinkTank Airport International rolling camera bag. My gear is now so safe and secure and is not going anywhere. It also has a combination lock to both get into the bag and for a cable that is attached to the bag and can be safely secured to something if I am concerned of it being stolen.
The inside of my camera bag!
Another very important aspect if you are a photographer and like to travel, always pack a backup camera with you. I will admit when I was first starting out, I was in situation when I flew to France to photograph my brand new niece and my lens broke. I ended up having to pay a lot of money and time to ship over one of my other lenses from home to there. Now I always travel with at least a backup camera body and extra lenses just in case something will brake while on the trip and that I then still can capture beautiful photographs.
Also, a must for a photographer is to make sure you have your insurance up to date and that all your gear is insured. This way you can safely enjoy using your camera and gear and know that if something where to happen you are still protected by the insurance on your gear and can get replacement.
Good luck with planning future travels and hopefully by reading this you are now a little bit more prepared to travel with your photographic gear in safe way.
Be sure to check out my colleague Julie Tauro with Julie Tauro Photography –
She is writing a great article about choosing clothing to fit your teenager or senior’s personality.
http://julietaurophotography.com/blog/
